Monday, December 10, 2007

Since late 2006, the young artists Marlon Griffith, Jaime Lee Loy, and Nikolai Noel have been engaged in open-ended collaboration and conversation with each other. In 2008, the trio will present several collaborative projects. During Griffith's absence from Trinidad (on a residency in Jamaica), Lee Loy and Noel will co-operate on a performative project at Alice Yard, called 200 Drawings.

"The project is a kind of exercise in looking, with 'gender' underpinnings--a level of engagement and observation without direct interaction. This is apart from the obvious exercise in concentration, imagination, and execution involved in the production of the drawings. J and I sit across the room from each other and make drawings, and we hope to amass 200 at the end. We give ourselves limitations with regard to size of paper, and that the drawings be executed in the presence of the other person involved. We work in the space where the drawings will be displayed."

--Nikolai Noel

From Monday 10 December, Lee Loy and Noel will spend several hours each day drawing each other in the gallery space at Alice Yard. On the night of Friday 14, the finished drawings will be displayed in the Alice Yard Space even as the two artists continue to draw under the gaze of their audience.

Bios:

Jaime Lee Loy has been experimenting with video for the past five years. Her paintings have also appeared in over a dozen exhibitions. She has been artist in residence in Trinidad (CCA) and the USA (Vermont Studio Centre). Her writing and art explore the nuances of the female psyche and interrogate the social frameworks that negatively impact that psyche. A young single mother, she produced the documentary Protest based on young mothers in Trinidad, as well as the videos Madam and Unease. She is currently producing a film based on Bury Your Mother, a short story she wrote for the forthcoming Trinidad Noir anthology. She is an honours graduate in literature and visual arts of the University of the West Indies, St Augustine.

Nikolai Noel grew up in the east Port of Spain district of Belmont and attended the John Donaldson Technical Institute before entering the world of commercial video production as an animator. He began to exhibit in 2000, and has shown work every year since, participating in a number of group shows and with solo shows in 2002 and 2007. He says: "The purpose of my work is to question the way we structure our civilisation. Why are the institutions that govern the world we know, the institutions that govern the world we know? Could we have evolved an alternative, more equitable form of organising ourselves? Is it too late to do it? Do we have the will or desire for that kind of thing? I am interested in the millions of years of occurrences that brought us to this point."

The trematode--a six-legged frog--has been adopted as a badge or logo for their collective by Marlon Griffith, Jaime Lee Loy, and Nikolai Noel.

.Alice Yard is the backyard space of the house at 80 Roberts Street, Woodbrook, Port of Spain.

This was once the house of Sean Leonard’s great-grandmother. Four generations of children played and imagined in this yard, and now we continue this tradition. Alice Yard is a space for creative experiment, collaboration, and improvisation.

Alice Yard is administered and curated by architect Sean Leonard, artist Christopher Cozier, and writer and editor Nicholas Laughlin, with the help of a growing network of creative collaborators. Read more about us here. Alice Yard is a non-profit organisation incorporated under the laws of Trinidad and Tobago.

Since 2008, Alice Yard has run a residency programme hosting artists, curators, and other creative practitioners. Find out more here.